coffee fellowship

I have been sending friends and family lots o’ coffee for the holidays. I love this part of being a roaster, and of being a smaller company. we have a small community, and friends that want to support the little guy (yeah yeah, I have heard EVERY short joke, move along now). Also, I believe (as all of us do at Ritual) in feedback. We believe in putting ourselves out there ALL the time to get people’s opinions, suggestions, critiques on what we are doing. Even if we do not agree, knowledge is power. We are pretty much doing this whole roasting thing on our own, and using what we know from being in the industry for years to do this thing. I think we are doing well considering how young and small we are as a roasting company.

We had some help in the beginning, but this shit is all on our own now, which makes it SUPER exciting and gets the people we call friends excited and supportive of us. I couldn’t keep doing what i do without my peers. Really. Be it at the shop/mini-roastery or online, or thousands of miles away by mail. The community keeps me motivated and moving and learning and growing. I don’t know if I will ever be bored roasting coffee.

Wholesale is a different animal, and a speech I will leave to our future official wholesale person. I am a coffee person first and foremost. It’s been great to be able to work bar and roast coffee, and now getting wholesale accounts is becoming exciting.

I have yet to go to origin. I ain’t sweating it. My day will come. For now I just want to make sure we are doing as much as we possibly can with the coffee we are buying and roasting, and getting people stoked on the consumption of it, and what it means for farmers and their families.

So here are well wishes for a new year creeping in around the corner to all of our coffee friends from Vancouver to Portland, to L.A. and Chicago, Milwuakee to HOTlanta and New York…HAPPY NEW YEAR MOTHERFUCKERS.

Hey bro, what advice would you give to a beginner who wants to get into the roasting/brewing game? I want to learn as much of the process as possible with the intent of one day sharing it with my local community. How long has it taken you to get where you are?